Um, There’s A New, Official Quake 1 Episode Out

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Depending on to what extent you accept ‘Bethesda’ as official, of course. This isn’t id’s work, and it’s definitely not Quake-era id’s work, but it is the work of neo-id’s stablemates Machine Games – they of the improbably good Wolfenstein: The New Order. (And who, according to its credits, pitched in to some extent with this year’s even more improbably good DOOM). They’ve just unexpectedly release a new Quake episode in honour of the dear old man’n’monster-shooter’s 20th birthday. It’s pretty good, too.

DOPA – not quite sure what that stands for as yet – starts off in the miltary base aesthetic but winds up in that beloved, bizarre gothic castle setting before too long. It’s definitely Quake-y, fear not. The first level is structured somewhat like Quake’s own first, even repeating the switch ‘puzzle’, and various nods repeat throughout, but it’s pretty much doing its own thing.

Wastes little time in getting tough as nailgun nails too, locking you in a small space with a mini-horde of Enforcers right at the start of level 2. Speed and reflex and clocking pickup locations win the day before long of course, but I definitely don’t get the impression that this was made for Quake first-timers. It’s busy and ridiculous and secret-packed, and even tries out a few setpiece tricks that I don’t believe the original ever did. So it’s a tiny piece of good news today.

Here’s a direct link to the download – extract the RAR, create a DOPA folder in your Quake directory and stick the PAK in there, then either try the .bat file (I had little luck) or grab a client such as Quakespasm and type GAME DOPA in the console.

Exactly. I thought after the success of the two Wolfensteins and Dooms singleplayer, the #1 priority managing the ID Ips would be getting a Lovecraft-inspired singleplayer Quake done asap. I was 100% sure we would something like this announced at E3. Hope this Ep means it will still happen.

One of the annoying things about the Quake version sold in Steam is that it lacks the music. So you will have rip it from your original disk like i did, following the instructions from the official Quakespasm site.

It’s a licensing issue with Trent Reznor, I belive. Possibly stemming from the fall-through of negotiations that were aimed at having him do the soundtrack to Doom 3 as well (which ultimately resulted in former NIN member Chris Vrenna doing his best NIN impression for that game instead).

That said, it might have more to do with the fact that Reznor has had multiple legal battles over the rights to his own music with record labels over the years, which led to him going Indie eventually (the Interscope/ Nothing Records debacle is an interesting historical minefield). So could be more to do with the record labels than Reznor himself.

I’ve also heard it’s because the game uses CD audio so the files aren’t included. It’s basically just a straight up distribution of the game files. So it’s either being really lazy when putting the game up on the storefront since all you have to do is put the music files in a folder or the licensing issue mentioned.

It’s not so simple. The GOG version actually shipped with the music ripped to OGG or MP3 and it was in the game by default. They later had to patch it out due to some crazy old contractual thing. Thankfully, GOG went the extra step and packed the Quake ISO into their release so that you could mount it and rip the music yourself.

Very classy/respectful tribute from MachineGames. I hope Bethesda gives them the opportunity to work on some other id franchises or develop their own, the Wolfenstein reboot was excellent but that feels like a really easy sequel-itis trap to fall into. After DOOM 2016 I think the bar will be higher for id franchise sequels and, as was already apparent with ‘The New Blood’, I suspect folks will not be satisfied with more narrative and rehashed mechanics. Let them fly Bethesda!

Just played through this, excellent set of levels, easily could have been in the original. A word of caution: when playing on hard skill (as you should) be very wary of ammo, as the later levels are very miserly in this regard. In the last few I often had to make wild dashes for ammo pickups before turning the gun on the mobs, sometimes even resorting to the axe (which is completely rubbish). For the final level I had to replay it to optimise the ammo usage, and still managed only to kill the final portal guardians with the last few shotgun shells. So it’s close to Q1 in that regard also.

Yeah DOOM 2016 isn’t bad but Project Brutality is far far superior. In it you have feet for kicking slidekicking jumpkicking and fists for punching and you can combine punches and kicks for sweet melee combos + the enemy variety is huge and don’t get me started on the weapons … there are a shitton of guns.

This was great. Two notes:
1) At the end of the third to last level “Underworld”, if you continue riding the floating platform over the lava past the level exit, there’s a secret exit that takes you to a really, really cool secret level.
2) In the second to last level, “Otherworld”, if you go into the exit gate backwards it teleports you back earlier in the level and opens up a passage that leads to a Dopefish!